This notebook contains course material from CBE20255 by Jeffrey Kantor (jeff at nd.edu); the content is available on Github. The text is released under the CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0 license, and code is released under the MIT license.
This project is motivated by a question that appeared Quora: Why can’t we take oxygen out of the water so divers have an unlimited supply of oxygen? Fish can do it; why haven’t we figured it out yet?
Breathing underwater has long been a subject of science fiction. James Bond, for example, was outfitted with a 'rebreather' device in the 1965 movie "Thunderball".
As it happens, there have been many attempts at such a device. These attempts range from serious to fantasy, and perhaps include examples of outright business fraud.
While these none of these attempts have led to a successful commercial device, the question remains ... what would it take to build a device allowing humans to swim underwater indefinitely without carrying an external oxygen supply?
For this exercise you will need to find data on that allows you estimate the amount of oxygen necessary to support a meaningful level of human activity underwater. Before jumping to Google, think carefully about what agencies or organizations are likely to have acquired such data, and whether the source of data would be reliable enough for the purposes of developing a commercial device.
Use this data to develop specifications for the required oxygen composition and flowrate.
Polymeric membrances are generally well suited to gas separation. Sketch a complete flowsheet for the breathing device feature a membrance based oxygen separation device
Putting all of your work together, what is your opinion regarding the feasibility of a portable oxygen breathing device for underwater swimming?